Secret Smile (2 page)

I arrived at La Table at about one minute
past eight and Kerry was already there. She was sitting at the table with a
glass of white wine and the bottle in a bucket by the side, and I knew
immediately that this was good news of some kind. She looked illuminated from
the inside and it showed through her eyes. She'd changed her appearance since
the previous time I'd seen her. I have my hair cut quite short. I liked the
look anyway, and it made particular sense when I was working so that my hair
wouldn't get dipped into resin or caught around a drill. Kerry wasn't someone
who had ever had much of a particular look, just medium-length hair, practical
clothes. Now she had had her hair cut short as well and it suited her. Almost
everything about her was different. She was wearing more make-up than usual,
which emphasized her large eyes. She had new clothes as well — dark, flared
trousers, a white linen shirt and a waistcoat, of all things. She had an elfin,
eager look about her. She waved me over to the table and poured me a glass of
wine.

'Cheers,' she said. 'You've got paint in
your hair, by the way.'

I wanted to say what I always want to say
to this, which is that naturally I have paint in my hair because I spend half
my life painting. But I never do and I especially wasn't going to this evening
when Kerry looked so happy and expectant. Expectant. It couldn't be, could it?

'Occupational hazard,' I said.

It was round the back where I couldn't
see. She scratched at my hair, so that we must have looked like two grooming
chimpanzees in the middle of the restaurant, and I even let her do it. She said
it wouldn't come off, which was comforting. I took a sip of the wine.

'This place seems nice,' I said.

'I was here last week,' she said. 'It's
great.'

'So how's things?'

'You're probably wondering why I called you,'
she said.

'There doesn't have to be a special
reason,' I said, lying.

'I've got some news for you,' she said.
'Some pretty startling news.'

She
was
pregnant. That was it. That
was all it could be. I looked at her more closely. A bit surprising to see her
drinking, though.

'I've got a new boyfriend,' she said.

'That's wonderful, Kerry. That's great
news.'

I felt more puzzled than before. I felt
happy for her, I really did, because I knew that she hadn't had a boyfriend for
some time. It was something that worried her. My parents were always a bit
concerned about it, which didn't help. But for her to announce it in this
formal way was bizarre.

'It's a bit awkward,' she said. 'That's
why I wanted to tell you before anybody else.'

'How could it be awkward?'

'That's right,' she said eagerly. 'That's
right. That's what I've been saying. It really shouldn't be a problem at all,
if we don't let it become one.'

I took a sip of wine and forced myself to
be patient. That was another characteristic of Kerry. She veered between being
so incommunicative that she wouldn't say a word to a sort of babbling
incoherence.

'What problem?'

'He's someone you know.'

'Really?'

'Actually, it's more than that. It's
someone you went out with. It's an ex-boyfriend of yours.'

I didn't respond to this because I started
thinking frantically. Who could this be? Lucas and I had had a massive bust-up
and he was with Cleo anyway. I'd been with Paul for a year and he'd certainly
met Kerry once or twice. But wasn't he still in Edinburgh? Then it was back to
ancient history. There were a few odds and sods from college, but that was at a
time when I was hardly in touch with Kerry at all. I tried to imagine the
massive coincidence that could have brought Kerry together with some figure
like Rob from my distant past. But they hadn't even met, had they? Or perhaps
it was way back even beyond that into my primeval past at school, with someone
like Tom. That must be it. Maybe there was a school reunion . . .

'It's Brendan,' she said. 'Brendan Block.'

'What? What do you mean?'

'Isn't it amazing? He's just about to
arrive. He said he thought it would be good if we all got together.'

'That's not possible,' I said.

'I know it might seem a bit odd

'Where did you meet?'

'I'll tell you,' she said. 'I'll tell you
everything. But I wanted to tell you something quickly before Bren arrives.'

'Bren?'

'I just wanted to say straight away, my
lovely Miranda, that Bren has told me all about it, and I want you to know that
I hope it won't be embarrassing.'

'What?'

Kerry leaned across the table and put both
her hands on mine. She looked at me with big, sympathetic eyes.

'Miranda, I know that it was painful for
you when you parted.' She took a deep breath and gave my hand a squeeze. 'I
know that Bren broke up with you. He's told me how upset you were, how angry
and bitter. But he has told me that he hopes you're over it. He says he's fine
about it.'

'He says he's fine about it?'

And at that moment Brendan Block came into
the restaurant.

CHAPTER 3

Kerry met Brendan in the middle of the
room, and he bent down to kiss her lingeringly on the lips. She closed her eyes
for a moment, looking tiny beside his tall, bulky figure. She stood on tiptoe
and whispered something in his ear, and he nodded and looked across at me with
his head slightly to one side and a very small smile on his lips. He gave a nod
and walked towards me with both arms outstretched. I didn't know quite what to
do. I half-raised myself from my seat, so by the time he arrived at the table I
was crouched awkwardly with the chair jammed behind my knees.

'Miranda,' he said. He put his hands
firmly on my shoulders, making me sink a bit lower towards my chair, and stared
me in the eyes. 'Oh, Miranda.'

He bent down to kiss me on the cheek, too
near my mouth. By this time Kerry had managed to wrap her arm around Brendan's
waist, so she bobbed towards me too, and for one awful second we were all a few
inches from each other's faces and I could see the sweat in the divot above his
upper lip and the small scar in Kerry's eyebrow where I'd hit her with a
plastic spade when I was four and she was six. So close I could smell his soap
and her perfume and something sour in the air between us. I pulled myself free
and sank gratefully back on to my chair.

'So Kerry's told you?' By now he was
sitting too, positioned between me and Kerry so that we were crammed around a
small segment of the table, our knees touching. He put a hand over Kerry's as
he spoke, and she looked up at him with her shining eyes.

'Yes. But I...'

'And it's really all right?'

'Why shouldn't I be?' I said and realized
I'd answered a question that hadn't been asked. It made me sound tense,
rattled, which I was, a bit. Anyone in the world would have been. I saw them
exchange a glance. 'I mean, it's fine.'

'I know this must be hard for you.'

'It's not hard for me at all,' I said.

'That's very generous of you,' he said.
'Typically generous. I told Derek and Marcia you would be like this. I told
them not to worry too much.'

'Mum and Dad?'

'Yes,' said Kerry. 'They met Bren a couple
of days ago. They really liked him. Well, of course they did. Troy did too, and
you know how hard he is to please.'

Brendan gave a modest smile. 'Sweet kid,'
he said.

'And you told them...?' I didn't know how
to finish the sentence. I suddenly remembered a phone call the night before
last, when both my parents had talked to me, one after the other, and asked me
how I was feeling at the moment. A small tic started up under my left eye.

'That you would understand because you
were a big-hearted woman,' said Brendan.

I felt myself getting angry now at the
thought of these people talking behind my back about the way they assumed I
would react.

'The way that I remember it is...'

Brendan held up a hand — large and white,
with hairy wrists. Hairy wrists, big ear lobes, thick neck. Memories bobbed to
the surface and I pushed them back down again. 'Let's not go any further right
now. Give it time.'

'Miranda,' said Kerry pleadingly. 'Bren
just told them what we thought they needed to know.' I looked across at her and
saw on her face the luminous happiness that I wasn't used to. I swallowed hard
and stared at the menu.

'Shall we order, then?'

'Good idea. I think I'll have the
daurade,'
said Brendan, rolling his 'r's at the back of his throat.

I didn't feel like eating anything.

'I'll just have the steak and chips,' I
said. 'Without the chips.'

'Still worried about your weight?'

'What?'

'You don't need to,' Brendan said. 'You
look fine. Doesn't she, Kerry?'

'Yes. Miranda always looks lovely.' For a
moment she looked sour, as if she'd said 'Miranda always looks lovely' too many
times. 'I think I'd like the salmon and a green salad.'

'We'll have a bottle of the Chablis, I
think,' said Brendan. 'Do you want a glass of red with your steak, Mirrie?'

That was another thing. I'd always liked
the name 'Miranda' because it couldn't be shortened. Until I met Brendan.
'Mirrie'. It sounded like a misprint.

'White's fine,' I said.

'Sure?'

'Yes.' I gripped the table. 'Thanks.'

Kerry got up to go to the ladies, and he
watched her weave her way through the tables with that small smile on his face.
He ordered our meal before turning back to me.

'So

'Miranda.'

He just smiled, then laid a hand over
mine.

'You two are very different,' he said.

'I know that.'

'No, I mean, you're different in ways you
couldn't possibly know.'

'What?'

'Only I can make comparisons,' he said,
still smiling at me fondly.

It took me a few seconds to understand. I
pulled my hand away.

'Brendan, listen...'

'Hello, honey,' he said over my head, then
stood up to pull back Kerry's chair for her, placing a hand on her head as she
sat down again. The food arrived. My steak was fat and bloody, and slid around
the plate when I tried to cut it. Brendan watched me hack at it, then lifted a
finger to a waitress as she passed. He said something to her in French, which I
didn't understand, and she brought me a different sort of knife.

'Brendan spent time in Paris,' said Kerry.

'Oh.'

'But you probably knew that?' She glanced
up at me then looked away. I couldn't read her expression: was it suspicious,
resentful, triumphant or simply curious?

'No, I didn't.' I knew very little about
Brendan. He said he was between jobs. He'd mentioned something about a
psychology course and about travelling around Europe for several months, but
beyond that I could hardly think of a single detail of his life. I'd never been
to his flat, never met his friends. He hadn't talked about his past and he had
been vague about his plans. But then of course, there had been so little time.
We had been approaching the stage when you start telling each other about your
lives when I'd caught him finding out about my life in his own way.

I finally managed to insert a mouthful of
steak into my mouth and chewed it vigorously. Brendan inserted a finger and
thumb delicately into his own mouth and extracted a thin bone, laying it
carefully on the side of his plate then swilling back the rest of his mouthful
with white wine. I looked away.

'So,' I said to Kerry. 'How did you two
meet?'

'Oh,' she said, and glanced up at Brendan
sideways. 'By accident, really.'

'Don't call it accident. Fate,' said
Brendan.

'I was in the park after work one evening
and it started to rain and this man

'That would be me

Kerry giggled happily. 'Yes. Bren. He said
he knew my face. "Aren't you Kerry Cotton?" he said.'

'I recognized her from your photograph of
course. Then there she was in front of me in the rain.'

'He told me he knew you — I mean, he
didn't tell me about, you know — he just said he knew you. Then he offered to
share his umbrella

'Like the gentleman I am,' said Brendan.
'You know me, Mirrie.'

'We carried on walking together, even
though it was belting down with rain. We got wetter and wetter, and our shoes
were squelching with water.'

'But we kept on walking through the rain,'
said Brendan and put his hand on her hair and stroked it. 'Didn't we?'

'We were soaked through, so I invited him
to come and get dry at mine...'